Of Gold Hair And Lightning
by xmaybejoleisa
Summary: It’s an accident, an unfortunate coincidence of sorts. LunaDraco.


**A/N**: Because Luna is the best but most underrated character in the HP series and Draco was one of the few good thing in the HBP movie that had a lasting effect on me. Happened to be listening to _What If This Storm Ends_ by Snow Patrol when this popped up…

-  
A perfect halo of gold hair and lightning  
Set you off against the planets last dance  
-

It's an accident, an unfortunate coincidence of sorts. He refuses to call it fate or destiny (_he sneers at the thought, it's too infantile and he's far too bitter to believe in such nonsense_).

She happens to find him in the Astronomy Tower in the dead of night, while the world around them sleeps (_reeks of havoc and fear, burns of dark enchantments, and cackles of darkness engulfing light over and over again_). History has been repeating itself since the beginning of time but the living never notice, never care enough to learn, and even if they did, even if they could, it wouldn't matter. No one can hide from the dark for too long after all.

He hears the footsteps as the person comes up and he ponders hexing whoever is coming, but he's shaking too hard, the task (_burden_) set forth for him taking too much of a toll over his hammering heart and pulsing through his body too heavily for him to care for the fraction of the second he should probably take out his wand and hiss out a (_mindless, feeble, trivial_) spell towards the intruder.

The steps are far too springy and light to be stealthy and sneaky, to be of fool-hardy, (_'courageous'_) students attired in crimson vests and embroidered golden lions on ridiculous school uniform ties.

The sound of feet stops suddenly and he realizes it doesn't matter whether the person behind him is an idiotic Gryffindor who can't seem to mind his own business or a lurking professor pressurizing him to let him assist him with the task (_burden_) at hand because of some bloody Unbreakable Vow.

No one can be trusted. No one is a friend or well-wisher. Everyone is an enemy. He's had to learn that by himself, through sleepless nights that put him into restless slumbers and wake him up with a start; covered with cold sweat that prickles his moon-kissed (_the sun dare not follow him, because after all, it rather keep away from the darkness that trails behind him) _pallid white skin and leaves him panting for breath, for salvation, for an escape (_there is no escape, no vanishing cabinet to hide him away for more than just a couple of hours, for forever, there is nothing but cold blackness, and in that blackness lies the truth, a cowardly sense of demented honor and recognition if all goes as planned_).

The nightmares are all he holds these days. They whisper eloquently to him, tell him to not forget or lose focus, otherwise he'll fall and bring down everything that defines him in a swish of a wand, a snap of fingered magic.

He turns around quickly, eyes bloodshot, the steel gray-blue orbs shining of bobbing insomniac complexities and instilled anger (_at the world_) and _hate _(_at humanity, if it even exists, he doubts it does_).

She stands there, eyes calmly studying his shaking figure. She doesn't ask any questions and _goddamnit _all he needs is to take his wand out and teach her and all her stupid mudblood and blood-traitor friends to stay away, by using an unforgivable on her—that'll teach them to mess around with _him_, that'll make them go away for good—

"Oh hello," she greets him dreamily, no beat of surprise in her breath, "do you come here often? I'm never seen you here before." She passes on the observation lightly, airily, eyes void of fear or any actual hesitance.

How dare she say anything to him? Doesn't she understand the things he could do to her, the thing he's seen, things that'll make little, oblivious girls like her shake in their Mary-Jane black shoes, make them forget about all the idiotic, imaginary creatures they think they can make up in the clouded spaces inside of their heads.

"_Get out of here now_." He hisses, stressing the syllables threateningly, but she stands there, no sign of turning around and running down the stairs like any other normal, less dense girl probably would.

His head pounds like crashing waves thundering of raiding lightning and looming torpedoes racing across darkening skies and for a second he'd like to jump off this tower, and fall away off of something other than cold-blooded murder, something that does not taste of disgrace and slithering curses slipping off of tongues and tinting the world around him of colorless stained guilt, regret, obsession — even if it means facing his own death (_at least it won't be by hands that reveal lifeless dark marks, or greed and power, a dreaded genocide of catastrophic means, of lingering terror and bloodless murder, even if it means being gossiped about as a shallow coward — just like his father — by his 'comrades', even if it means being spit upon and bated with mutters under breathes that sound suspiciously like 'good riddance' by his 'foes', even if it means an inevitable punishment for a father too proud to actually care for a son, even if it means leaving behind a weeping mother tortured to death callously_).

He's been brought up to be selfish, cultured of unfeeling sophistication, pure-blood distaste and groomed of unforgiving and inhumane morals (if you could call them that). His family is a sham, poisoned and brainwashed for generations now, but he still can't let go of any of it. He's doomed. The Dark Lord knows it, his mother knows it, he knows it and there is no turning back, nothing but failure and cruel screeches resonating around him, always around him.

"Don't do it." She hums the words in faint admonition, looking away with dreamy eyes.

"What are you going on about?" He snaps rudely as she, funnily enough, brings him back to reality, and he raises his voice higher, "And didn't I tell you to get out? Don't make me do something _you'll _regret—"

She blinks at him for a second and then suddenly her eyes are filled with silvery ink, a sheet of blankness over it. "I rather like to fly to the moon than fall to ground." She juts her chin out towards the sky than to the ground, still apathetic to the threat in his tone and the caged bite in his words. Her sentence comes out like a conversational daze, not a tinge of effect from the lingering overpowerment of his shadowy presence. "It seems so much less painful, don't you think?"

He glares at her vehemently, "Listen, you _loon_, I don't particularly care to hear the utter nonsense that comes out of that mouth of yours, so I'll say it again, _one last time_, why don't you go skipping along now back down those stairs before I hex the—"

"My name means moon, did you know that? Maybe that's why I've always been so fascinated by it—"

"If you don't get out of my sight in the next bloody second, I swear I'll—" His voice comes out raspy and strained.

"You swear?" She interrupts in a probing tone, finally looking down from the full moon in the sky, silvery patient eyes catching his unrestrained gray ones. "you swear you'll what…hurt me?" Her voice holds no hostile challenge, but a paradox of kindly blunt curiosity in it.

He wants her to leave him alone, he wants to weep silent tears over _petty_ crimes he's committed that never seem to work anyway, no matter how desperately he tries and he wants to vomit the blasted bowl of soup Pansy forced down his throat after dragging him down for dinner tonight (_something about him looking too terribly pale and thin, though he never actually took the effort to register her words_).

"Yes." He whispers, the word a ghost between them. "_Yes_." He repeats more harshly, more abrasively the second time around, eyes glazing over with an unhealthy gleam of coldness and vindictiveness.

He is an inverted, laughable version of an anti-hero, a useless marionette in a ploy that involves far more of dark-magic conspiracy than he's ever liked to think about, a pawn in a chess game made for brave men, not petulant little boys who desire for more than they bargain for, too late to realize what they've gotten themselves into and there is no way to get out, no way to walk away and pretend he's not here, that nothing ever happened, that he's only a sixteen year old boy being sent out to kill one of the greatest wizards the wizarding world has ever come across.

"You see," she starts out slowly, unaccustomed eyes carefully searching over his disheveled appearance, "I just thought it would be a nice thing to do - to talk to someone so awfully lonely-looking like you," She finally finishes off, looking off into the distance as her words trail off and she tilts her head towards the star-lit sky, attention obviously wavering off towards it instead, as she smiles at it softly.

"_Nice_." He spits out the word like it's of bad taste, "_Lonely. Me_. Looked in the mirror lately? Better enough, gotten your head checked recently, _Loony_?" he pauses, muttering under his breath darkly, "From the looks of it, that's highly questionable."

"Did you say something," She asks, casting her eyes away from the moon she had just seemed to acquire random burst of interest in and back towards him instead.

"No. Nothing at all." He replies in a monotone, feeling a surge of exhaustion take over him, if they were younger, he'd come up with some taunting jeers by now but everything, except the task in his hands, has become ridiculously juvenile.

"You're not actually dangerous, are you?" She asks pointblank and out of nowhere after a second of staring at him oddly and his eyes shoot up instantly, catching hers, a dark whirlpool of warning in them. Merlin knows what actually goes through the basket case's head though. "You're a bully, but you aren't dangerous."

"Sure about that, are we Loony?" He replies menacingly, eyes like daggers, and he takes a measured step toward her, shaking of anger and unfathomable emotion.

She nods her head nonchalantly before continuing, "Oh, I'm almost certain. You're not a bad person. You're weak and insecure, but you're not evil,_ real_ evil that is," she remarks off-handedly, a hint of humming in her tone again.

"Is that so?" He spats out, "You've got some nerve, calling me weak, insecure—"

"But not evil—" she cuts in quietly, silver eyes a surface of tranquility.

"_Shut up_, just shut up—" He hisses taking another threatening step towards her direction, and he should control himself but he can't, he's so tired of the isolation, the constant pressure, the slaps of reality and the grievances of his actions, of the random spurts of hysteria and sobs he finds himself in when he's all alone, always alone, even in a crowded room full of laughing students, even in a dusty, convoluted room with a dead bird in his hands—

His arm shoots out from a side of his black suit and he grabs her wrist, locking his fingers across her frail and thin wrist in a painfully iron grip, and his eyes scream of youth-thirsting insanity and madness, "Want to see something Loony? Something that will make you want to take back those atrociously ignorant and naïve words that just came out of your mouth a second ago, that'll make your skin crawl and make you run back down to_ Potter _or _Weasley_ so fast_—"_

"Draco—"

His eyes narrow and darken considerably, "_Don't_ ever call me by my first name or you'll regret it, understand Lovegood—" He's still quivering all over and she instantly becomes silent, and maybe it's the frenzy all around him that's making him delirious, but he swears he sees a tiny fraction of the spark and dreaminess in her eyes evaporate, but it doesn't matter, none of it matters, he should be basking in this, like he did just a few months ago.

He takes his other arm, trepid fingers hovering over the sleeve of his custom-made black suit, and then he pulls it back, wrist exposed to the full moon's light, milk-white flesh marked (_gashed_) with the dark mark, the Dark Lord's doing, a scorching and stinging reminder of his duties as a Death Eater wherever he goes, no matter how fast he hurries down vacant hallways towards Rooms of Requirement, or caged bird, no matter how long it takes for the sense of panic to take over his whole body.

"Think I'm not so evil now, do you?" He jabs mockingly, looming dangerously over her, and her unnerving eyes waver between his cold gray ones and the mark stamped onto his skin, and just as he's about sneer at her in disgust and push her away from him, he feels soft, cool fingers on his wrist.

He drops his gaze down towards it, and for a second he's jarred in place, a part of him screaming to take his hand away fast, to hex the crazy girl in front of him, but he hasn't had human contact like this in a while, hasn't been cared for or treated this gently since—

Her fingers dance along the black mark delicately, almost as if afraid any second now they'll be pushed away roughly, and they trail down against the curve of the shape, around the skull and the serpent's slithery tongue and he draws out another shaky breath, trying to savor the moment if only for a second.

"Did it hurt?" She asks vaguely, the insistent humming in her voice just as present as always, and it sings a sickening rapture of peace over his warring conscience, swims in his (_puretainted_) boiling bloodstream, and his throat feels dry and his heart is beating so rapidly, he thinks it'll rip out of his chest any minute now. What does it matter anyway? He lost his soul a while back. A heart doesn't (_can't_) do him any good at this point.

He nods his head though he's not sure at what exactly, concentrating on keeping his eyes closed instead, as he desperately tries to suppress any signs of the wreaking sobs inside of him.

It's too late. He can't go back. He can never go back. And each day, as he gets closer and closer, takes a step forward, only to be pushed two steps back, he can sense it becoming a part of him and who he's supposed to become more and more. There's nothing glorifying about this, he was a fool to ever think there was.

"There really isn't, is there?" He opens his eyes at the sound of her voice breaking his swiftly moving thoughts once again, and she looks intently at him, taking in the dark bags under his eyes, the hollow shape of his face, the uncharacteristic hardness of his jaw line, "There's nothing glorifying about it, is there," her thumb presses softly into the center of the mark and the mix of nasty words and bile hitch to a stop in his throat. He wonders if she can read minds as he takes in the sight of her standing their waiting aloofly for his response.

The moon's rays of light illuminate her figure against the Astronomy Tower telescopes, making her blonde hair a halo around her oval face for a second, and she isn't an angel, or a savior, or a trick of light. _She is_—

"What's your name again?" His question comes out strangled and smothered.

She cocks her head to the side again, and he's not sure if it's a half-smile or nothing at all, but whatever she does with her mouth, is slightly alluring, slightly mysterious and frustratingly enough indecipherable, "Luna." She breathes out loosely and he's hit with a hazy twinge of disarrayed empty, floating space, a form of chemical imbalance that emits from the girl in front of him, and holds him in place, overwhelming his senses with frenzied, passing by remembrance.

"_Luna,"_ He repeats slowly, absorbing the enunciation, the way it fits her so well, like the name belongs to her, like the moon belongs to her, embodies all she is, like it passes on its trait to her so she can embellish upon them.

Suddenly he stiffens, "Pity," He drawls out unfeelingly, relentlessly cruel and broken gray eyes boring sharp holes through her. "You're lovely really, but not lovely enough unfortunately... you understand though, don't you," he manages to whisper in an unsettlingly calm whisper, "I'll be nice though_, I swear_."

She gazes at him impassively; her eyebrows creasing only slightly, and he does not wait for her to process the significance of his words, as he neatly removes her fingers off of his wrist. Before she can react or move, he utters the simple spell, a lazy chant, a quiet charm, and a flash of light (_almost like lightning_) explodes from the tip of the wand gripped firmly in his hand.

"_Obliviate_"

Her silver (_the loveliest shade of silver he's ever glimpsed_) eyes gloss over, the memory they've just created together freezing over and suddenly being extracted with a complex and glassy precision, the internal hourglass inside of her spiraling back just enough for all of this to have been believed to never take place.

She blinks a few times, looking at him curiously, and it's a little déjà vu, but he can't help the bittersweet smirk of triumph that appears on his face. She looks around for a second, eyes round and perplexed, before landing back on him with the trademark pensive composure to them, and she gives him a polite, meek half-smile.

"Sorry, but would you know how I happened to get here?" She gestures to the walls of the Astronomy Tower around them.

He shrugs, eyes shining of polished malice and aversion, as he pushes past her indifferently, towards the steps. "Sleepwalking maybe, couldn't put it past you now, could I _Loony_?"

He does not turn around once, keeping his back straight and rigid just like his father always taught him to.

He does not need anyone. He does not trust anyone. He is all alone and the world around him will continue to rot before his eyes regardless of whether he succeeds or fails, regardless of whether he survives or dies away with the dishonored, the blood-traitors, the mudbloods, the weak, the cowardly (_never the valiant, never the heroic, never the chosen ones_).

-  
What if the storm ends and leaves us nothing  
Except the memory, a distant echo  
-

-

You don't understand how hard it was for me to attempt to keep these two in character. I'm sorry if I failed really. Unbetaed, so sorry for any terrible grammer mistakes. Review and tell me what you think. I'd really appreciate it.


End file.
